


On a Simple Twist of Fate

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-12
Updated: 2007-01-12
Packaged: 2019-05-19 22:31:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14882447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: An alternate ending to the fight in Outsiders #21-22.





	1. Frantic

"Arsenal?"

The frantic sound of his little bird’s voice on the other end of Harper’s communicator repeats with an annoying frequency as the mercenary eliminates his enemy. The kid sounds almost hysterical, something Slade never would have guessed Grayson would allow in his mentor’s presence. That slip-up, momentary weakness come to light, is filed away, to be exploited later.

Right now, Slade has another weakness to deal with.

The opponent fights impressively well, for someone who’s primary weapon are tiny sticks Slade can snap between his fingers. Perhaps the skill has been born from sparring with Grayson, or perhaps his other little bird is to blame. Slade can see remnants of both their fighting styles in this one.

Either way, they did not train the redhead quite well enough. He falls, succumbing in a way they never did.

It is only after the opponent has fallen and Slade is removing his blade that he sees the scars on Harper's chest. The mercenary feels a twinge of regret, as this was not a fair fight. The scars are too new and they tell Slade that the adversary was not at the top of his game for this fight.

The belated knowledge will not do Harper any good.

Slade has lost loved ones. For that reason alone, he takes his leave of the corpse and allows Grayson the privacy to mourn Harper’s death. There will be time for gloating, provoking, and molding of this situation over the little bird’s head later.  



	2. Close Your Eyes

Her father used to tell Lian that there were three people she could always count on, no matter what: him, Aunt Dinah, and Uncle Dick.

But then he'd left her.

And so had Aunt Dinah.

So far, Uncle Dick hadn't left, and Lian was very happy. Every day, she prayed to the all of the gods that her daddy, Aunt Donna, Uncle Garth, and Uncle Wally had taught her that he wouldn't go away too, because he was the last one she had to count on, no matter what.

But she really needs him right now, to come and take her away from this place. Because no matter what anyone here might say, Lian knows that her Mommy isn't one of those people that she could count on.

She waits for a long time for Uncle Dick, and wonders if he is going to come save her, like Daddy used to tell her stories of them doing when she is a baby. Thinking of Daddy makes her cry, like it almost always does, but she tries not to cry while she waits, because Mommy will spank her if she does and Lian doesn't like being spanked. 

While she's waiting, she thinks that maybe Daddy was wrong; maybe Uncle Nightwing is never going to find her, and maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe her Mommy is telling the truth when she says that Uncle Nightwing didn't want her and wasn't happy with her around.

He'd never seemed very happy. Not since Aunt Dinah and Daddy went away.

But when he finally shows up, and Lian doesn't have to wait anymore, he looks very happy. He's even smiling, and he hasn't done that since long before Daddy went away. 

The smile lets her know it's him, because it's an Uncle Dick smile, even if the costume is all wrong. He's wearing red and black - Daddy's colors, not Nightwing's. And when he picks her up and squeezes her into a hug, it's an Uncle Dick hug, and almost Uncle Dick's voice that speaks to her. "I've got you, Lian. No one is ever going to hurt you ever again because I failed. I won't make the same mistakes with you that I made with your Daddy, Dart. I won't."

Her hands brush against the odd costume as she squeezes his neck. "I love you, Uncle Nightwing."

He pauses, then says, "It's not Nightwing anymore, Dart. But we'll talk about that when we get home. In the meantime, I want you to do something very important for me. Close your eyes and don't open them until I say you can."

Lian listens to Uncle Dick, because Daddy always said she should. And she doesn't open her eyes until they are long gone from Mommy's house. She wonders where Mommy is, and why she isn't trying to stop them, but she's afraid to ask Uncle Dick because she hasn't seem him look that happy since before Aunt Donna left them. She worries that if she asks why no one tried to stop them that maybe he'll stop being so happy, even if she's not quite sure why.

So she doesn't ask, and Uncle Dick stays happy.

When they get home, Uncle Dick stays happy. He's even willing to play with her, something he hasn't done for ages. And. . .Lian still misses her Aunt Dinah and Daddy so much, and she knows she'll never stop missing them, because them leaving hurts her heart, but them being gone hurts less when Uncle Dick seems so happy, and is willing to play.

Even if he does call it training instead.


	3. The More They Stay the Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifteen months after Roy's death, Dick and Lian have a routine. Tim changes it.

Roy had been gone for three months and Cheshire eliminated for two, by the time The Crisis occurred. Dick and Lian had settled into a definite routine by that point, the kind that included no less than two hours of free form play, and no more than six hours of serious training each day, followed by Renegade's ever-more dedicated patrol at night. Studies that would never again be taught by strangers whom Renegade would not trust Lian with were added to the schedule as Dick saw fit. It was always possible that Roy's baby girl might grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer some day. 

Dick was simply determined that she would be one that no one else could touch.

Though numerous outside influences kept trying to interrupt their lifestyle, none were important or good enough to be a serious threat, and so their lives continued, with only the occasional glitch that came with the kind of grief that still made Dick's knees go weak when the right kind of cologne drifted across the aisle of the grocery store. It was the same kind of grief that still made Lian wake up at four in the morning crying for her Daddy.

Renegade wasn't fond of Lian's habit - it meant he had to be there for her instead of out on patrol, taking care of the kind of scum that made her an orphan to begin with - but Dick knew she deserved the only thing resembling a parent she had left, instead of the bodyguard to comfort those dreams. After all, the bodyguard couldn't begin to fathom how much loosing Roy every night hurt. Dick was all too aware, as he held the baby girl, told her that it was okay to cry, reassured her that he missed her daddy to, apologized for not getting there in time, and ached for the ability or right to lie down and cry with her. 

By the time The Crisis came, it had been two and a half months since Dick had stopped crying for Roy. The same mixture of rage and pity that made it impossible for him to do so made him laugh in his former mentor's face when Batman showed up on his porch, asking him to change his behavior, and come back to the "Good Side," in Batman's self-righteous estimation of the term. For the sake of the oncoming battle. For the sake of everyone he loved. For the sake of Lian. Dick had already heard those arguments of course - from two women he used to love, from the man not fit to be Lian's grandfather, and from the "uncle" Dick had once so stringently worshiped. 

Dick reminded Bruce of Brother Eye, and told him to go give his spiel to Jason before telling him to get out. 

The next day, he and Lian moved again.

But despite Dick's determination to continue in the life he had chosen for himself and Lian, on the night that the sky exploded with multiple Earths, Renegade paused long enough in the killing of the rapist trembling before him to glance wistfully up at the sky and wish that one of them held the man he had lost. If those worlds had given them another Superman and another Superboy, surely it wasn't too much to ask for them to give another Arsenal? Another Roy - this one, Dick swore to treat better, more tenderly, and not take for granted. As he fired a shot between the sleaze bag's eyes, Dick almost allowed himself to hope, for the first time in three months.

His wish went ungranted. The Crisis refused to give him back his lover. A year later later, all he got back was a brother. 

He wasn't expecting company that night, and lowered the gun only after he made out the once familiar form of the current Robin. The kid was wearing a different costume, and as Dick fleetingly thought of his old one, he wondered if the change had been a way of shedding the influence of the first in a long line of Robins that hadn't lived up to Bruce's expectations. 

He wondered if Tim missed the green as much as he did. But he didn't ask, once Tim landed on his fire escape and looked at the gun steadily, with the kind of foolish certainty that had gotten Roy killed. Robin's smell was off, Dick noticed. The familiar scents of a cave were there - the acidic, wet, cold smell - but the essential organic feel of being alive that defined the Cave Dick had spent his childhood in was missing, overpowered by a strong synthetic scent that Dick couldn't quite place. It bothered him - mostly because he missed the correct smell of the Cave - but he ignored it. 

"Go home," he told Tim, not bothering to hold back his harshness. "And next time, don't presume to think I won't shoot you."

"You won't," Tim stated with a shrug that would have been more argumentative, if it had seemed even a little more heartfelt. "You only kill the villains. The ones who take away the innocents."

"Thanks for the recap, Robin. But last time I checked in, that morality doesn't fly to well with the Batclan."

"A lot has changed since you left." 

Since Roy died, Robin didn't say, and Dick was irritated by the omittance. It wasn't as though not saying it was going to bring Roy back. "Either tell me why you're here or leave, Robin."

Tim reached up and removed his mask. It was an irritating detail, one that made Dick want to grab the other man and tell him that the familiar tricks the Batclan used for emotional blackmail wouldn't work on him. 

But that argument died on Dick's lips as Tim turned his eyes up towards Dick, reflecting back every emotion Dick had fought to keep under control for the past fifteen months. 

"I used to think you were wrong," Tim answered, as softly as the empty pillowcase in Dick's bed answered him when he reached for the man who would never lie there again. "About the way you reacted to what happened to Arsenal."

"To the way I reacted to Roy dying," Dick corrected, because it was far too important of an event to mention in the vague hand-wave motions that the Batclan had used as defense mechanisms for so long. . . that he'd tried to retreat to following Donna's death. Dick was quite aware that those reactions had, quite directly, led to Roy's death. He'd learned his lesson, and however too late it might have been, he was determined not to repeat his mistakes. 

Tim winced at the last word. Dick wished he still had that luxury. 

"I thought you reacted wrong," Tim repeated. "But . . . you didn't."

Dick laughed, and heard the haunting sound of his dead lover's laughter join in, as he always did whenever anyone laughed in his presence, especially in his home. "Much as I appreciate your support, Robin, want to tell me what brought it on? A certain Bat-issued checkup, for example?"

"Batman gave up on you," Tim said simply. 

Dick took another deep breath, inhaling the wrong cave smell Tim wore, and allowed himself to miss the correct smell briefly before remembering what was actually important. "And I gave up on his mission. Doesn't mean he didn't send you here to spy on us." Dick took a step closer and allowed his voice to drop to the Renegade growl that he'd never dreamed he'd ever use on someone he'd once cared about. "I won't let you disrupt our lives, Robin. She's all I have left and I won't let anyone take me away from her."

"You're all I have left." Tim's growl matched his own, and Dick realized that no order of Batman's could enable that particular reaction. Only genuine loss could do that. 

Dick tried for sympathy and wondered when it had started being so hard to force that particular emotion. Instead, he tried for the gentle voice he used for Lian's nightmares, since Tim would never fully wake up from his torment, either. "I heard about Superboy."

"Of course you did. He died to save the world. That's front page news, even in this city."

Renegade fought down a snarl as he remembered that Arsenal hadn't had the hero death Speedy had always craved. A collision with the wrong blade - one that Arsenal's team should have been there to prevent - on rooftop hadn't saved the world, or anyone really. Not even a bunch of half-dead trees.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he forced himself to say, because the memory of the way Tim's cheeks used to blush at the mention of Superboy was as bright as the memory of the way Roy's cheeks had blushed that first time, in the Cave, long before there had ever been a Tower. 

"I tried. . . " Tim's voice sounded like he was trying to cough and speak at the same time. "I tried to bring him back. It didn't work."

Dick didn't ask how, because he had a good idea about the lengths that Tim would go to in order to bring Superboy back. If Dick had a way. . . But he didn't. "But why are you here, Tim?"

Tim didn't answer immediately, he just shifted his weight and looked back over the fire escape. "Bruce has a new son. I'm sure you heard about him."

"Damian." Dick didn't bring up the adoption that he'd also heard about. Blood was thicker than water. 

"The kid's gone now. He'll probably be back. But even if he isn't, he's a reminder that I don't belong there anymore. I can't just stay there and pretend that I'm his son and that everything is normal." Tim paused long enough to run his nails through his scalps. They were dirty nails, Dick noted - full of dirt and grime that his previously neat freak of a brother never would have allowed to build. 

For the first time since Roy died, Dick allowed himself to feel something close to worry for someone who wasn't Lian. The sympathy was a little easier in dredging up, the second time around. "Nothing will ever be normal again, Robin."

"I'm not Robin anymore," Tim corrected, hand reaching up and automatically brushing the empty spot where the R should have been on his costume. "You would have noticed that, a year ago. Might even have known it before I got here. You're slipping."

"Do you actually have a point in being here?" His frustration seeped into his voice, and Dick blamed Tim's audacity. He didn't have the luxury in slipping. He had to look out for Lian.

Robin. . .Tim shrugged. "I could leave, go it alone. That approach seems to have worked well for the Robins that came before me." Somewhere deep in the part of Dick's memory that he tried to keep buried, for the sake of staying sane for Lian, he remembered one of the last conversations he'd ever had with Roy. //"The thing that eats you - is that you're terrified of becoming Batman. A cold, detached, emotionless loner. I've got news for you. That's exactly what you are. You've become the man who raised you."// Roy's voice was as clear as crystal, and as vibrant as the feel of Roy's blood on his own fists, something that still hadn't washed off, fifteen and a half months after that first punch. 

Dick wouldn't think about what he'd said in response to Roy's accusation. "Or you could stay here? Somehow, I don't think you'd be up for the kind of justice Renegade dishes out."

"Maybe I can't kill. But I won't get in your way. And you clearly need someone around to help keep you sharp."

"So you just want to stick around, and babysit me? Thanks, but no thanks, Tim. I'm sorry you're having a rough time, but I have someone else to think about."

"Lian."

"That's right. She's my priority now."

"That's why you're teaching her, and letting Red Hood teach her street fighting on Tuesdays. I can teach her something even more important that neither of you can. The only skills I was ever better at than you."

"Technical skills. Computers, hacking," Dick conceded. He had some skills in that area, but nowhere near as good as Tim. Or Oracle. 

"Yes. And surely Renegade could use a partner with those abilities as well."

Dick almost smiled, and it almost didn't hurt to do so. "Batman needs a Robin; Renegade needs a Tim?"

"You're the last of my family," Tim answered simply. "I need you. And if I have to betray everything I used to believe in in order to be the voice in your ear that tells you exactly which rooftop to find your prey in order to keep you . . here. . . and safe. . . I will do that. And I won't regret it."

It was a good argument. Had Dick ever been able to refute it in the first place, he wouldn't have became Renegade at all. There was, therefore, very little choice in what his response would be. Besides, it would be good for Tim. And good for Lian. And Roy. . . would have been pleased that his daughter wasn't being raised by a solitary emotionless loner. "We can give it a try," he agreed, feeling his mouth lift slightly at the sigh of relief he saw Tim take. 

"I'll need a new code name."

"True, but we're already half way there." Dick shrugged and gestured to Tim's attire. "We match now." 

Tim looked down at his costume, then back up at Dick with a kind of defiance that apparently came with losing the other half of your soul. "The changes to the suit weren't because of you."

"No," Dick agreed, running a hand consciously down the front of his own red and black costume. "They aren't my colors."


End file.
